Your Environment is Changing
It’s #MapMonday! Check out our new Story Map: “Your Environment is Changing: But How it Changes is up to You.” This interactive Story Map helps us better understand the world around us and demonstrates how the CEC’s North American Environmental Atlas can support action, research and decision-making. By combining images, maps and a story in this […]
Population density
It’s #MapMonday! This month we’re highlighting population density. How many people per square kilometer are living near you? Where are most people living in North America and how does that compare across different regions? How do we determine what counts as a highly populated area? Did you know that understanding the population density of different […]
Political Boundaries, 2021
This reference map from the North American Environmental Atlas depicts political entities in North America, with jurisdictional areas represented as polygons and political boundaries, including international boundaries, and provincial, state, or territory boundaries, as lines. This revised map, which was previously released by the Commission for Environmental Cooperation in 2010, integrates spatial vector information on […]
Population Density, 2020
This map shows the population density of North America for the year 2020 in number of people per square kilometer within 2.5 arc-minute pixels. The dataset is derived from the Gridded Population of the World, Version 4 (GPWv4), produced by the Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN) from Columbia University in 2018. Source: […]
Airports, 2011
This North American Environmental Atlas base layer shows airports (excluding heliports and seaplane bases) of North America at 1:10,000,000 scale. Data used for this map were created by Natural Resources Canada (NR-Can), US Geological Survey (USGS) and the National Institute of Statistics and Geography of Mexico (Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Geografía—Inegi).
Populated Places, 2009
This North American Atlas base layer shows a selection of named populated places suitable for use at a scale of 1:10,000,000. Places, which refer to individual municipalities, are represented as points. Each point indicates the approximate location of a place, relative to data in the North American Atlas roads, railroads, and hydrography layers. The selection […]
Railroads, 2009
This North American Atlas base layer shows the railroads of North America. The railroads included are either rail links between major centers of population or major resource railways. There is no classification of rail lines.
Nighttime Lights
This map is an image of nighttime lights of North America, including the Caribbean and Mexico. The data were collected in 1996 and 1997 as part of the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) of the United States. The Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) satellites collect visible and infrared cloud imagery as well as monitoring the […]
Installed Renewable Energy
This map shows the total installed renewable energy capacity for the states, provinces, and territories of North America as of 2003. The renewable energy sources included in the data are biomass, geothermal, hydropower, solar, and wind.
Human Impact on Marine Ecosystems
This map shows the impacts of humans on the ocean’s ecosystems. To generate this map, the research team collected or created global maps of 17 different human activities, such as fishing and pollution, that have an impact on marine ecosystems, as well as maps of different marine ecosystems. The team quantified the vulnerability of each […]
Anthropogenic Biomes
This map shows North America classified into “anthropogenic biomes,” also known as “anthromes” or “human biomes.” Biomes are major global ecosystem types, characterized by particular climate and soil conditions and distinctive forms of life adapted to these conditions. Incorporating the significant role of humans in altering ecosystems, this map offers a new way of classifying the […]
Irrigated Areas
This map shows the percentage of the total land area that was equipped for irrigation, around the year 2000. Irrigation is the practice of applying water to land to promote the growth of vegetation such as crops and pastures. The land area actually irrigated is unknown but was smaller than the amount equipped for irrigation. […]